As one who has read much about this grisly 1892 double homicide, and who has visited the actual home in Fall River, Massachusetts, I was appalled at the inaccuracies too numerous to detail here. As a person who normally pays little attention to a film's background music, this film had such horribly distracting rock music, with vocals, on many scenes that I understand the other reviewers here who claim they ruined the film.
But the film was ruined by many other things. First of all, there is almost nothing accurate about the Borden home as shown in this film. It was much narrower and has no interior hallways. One room leads to another. One of the keys to believing her guilty is how when Andrew Borden returned home that day, Lizzie stood at the top of the front staircase, laughing. Where she would have been--just outside her bedroom, she could easily have looked right and seen her dead stepmother. In this film, that bedroom was down the hall from the staircase, as shown when the maid went looking for Mrs. Borden. The film shows her downstairs when Andrew arrived home.
Also wrong, the film, after the police were examining the crime scene, has Lizzie sending the maid alone upstairs to look for Mrs. Borden. In real life, before the police arrive, she asked the maid and her friend to look for her because she was sure she had heard her stepmother return.
One of the key elements in making her a suspect in real life was that Lizzie told the police that she never entered the room where her father lay dead, never saw his hatchet-ed face, never even saw any blood, only his body on the couch. So without seeing anything amiss, why did she call to the maid reporting that father had been killed? In the film, she saw the bloody face and screamed wildly--not at all matching the facts.
The family all called the maid Maggie, but the movie only mentioned her actual name of Bridget. She was a popular suspect with the public, largely because she was an Irish Catholic in a town full of people that didn't care for either. This wasn't mentioned either.
The film shows the maid washing windows when Andrew was killed. Wrong. While Maggie was washing windows at the time of the first murder, she was napping when Mr. Borden was killed. This was her option after Lizzie had suggested she go shopping for a while--right after Andrew had returned home. Her room was on the third level, far from the first floor sitting room site of the murder.
They also showed Maggie inside, hearing a thud (the falling body of Mrs. Borden) when in fact she reported hearing nothing, (as did Lizzie).
The many times when an investigator referred to Mrs. Borden as her "mother" and was interrupted by Lizzie, insisting she was only her "stepmother" were omitted from this film.
The dress that was such a focal point had been burned in the kitchen stove, not an outside pot as stated in the film. When the police arrived, Lizzie had already switched to a pink dress, unlike what the film depicted.
Extra SPOILER alert: The film depicts a totally concocted scene about what Lizzie actually told her sister about the murders that totally contradicts the historical record. It appears to take place shortly after the trial, and the next day, Emma is seen leaving their home and words on the screen tell us they never spoke again.
In real life, they shared the much larger home they bought after the murders for a dozen years. Years after moving out, Emma insisted she believed Lizzie innocent.
A blade was found in the basement, suspiciously buried in ashes, with the handle broken off. This blade was fitted precisely to the wounds in the skulls. It is believed the broken handle was burned in the stove. Amazingly, the film omits all of this.
I was also distressed at how the farcical elements of the trial were omitted from the film. The chief defense attorney was not the family lawyer as shown, but the former governor of the state who had appointed to the bench one of the three judges that sat on the case. That judge had delivered the charges to the jury that were pretty much a second summation for the defense, instead of what they should be. He even presented a theory about the missing note that the defense had not presented, as if he was trying extra hard to help the defense in the case. You'd have thought his name was Ito.
It was absurd for the film to show closing arguments as a back-and-forth between the two sides, which isn't at all true. When the jury returned to the courtroom, they enter in slow motion for some reason.
The director also found it necessary to repeatedly show scenes, usually short bits, of the hatchet swinging and blood flying, in flashback format, as if one look at all the blood wasn't enough.
I believe this film poorly made, with the worst soundtrack I ever heard, to be excessively bloody, and with over two dozen factual inaccuracies (I quit counting) to be a real waste of time.
But the film was ruined by many other things. First of all, there is almost nothing accurate about the Borden home as shown in this film. It was much narrower and has no interior hallways. One room leads to another. One of the keys to believing her guilty is how when Andrew Borden returned home that day, Lizzie stood at the top of the front staircase, laughing. Where she would have been--just outside her bedroom, she could easily have looked right and seen her dead stepmother. In this film, that bedroom was down the hall from the staircase, as shown when the maid went looking for Mrs. Borden. The film shows her downstairs when Andrew arrived home.
Also wrong, the film, after the police were examining the crime scene, has Lizzie sending the maid alone upstairs to look for Mrs. Borden. In real life, before the police arrive, she asked the maid and her friend to look for her because she was sure she had heard her stepmother return.
One of the key elements in making her a suspect in real life was that Lizzie told the police that she never entered the room where her father lay dead, never saw his hatchet-ed face, never even saw any blood, only his body on the couch. So without seeing anything amiss, why did she call to the maid reporting that father had been killed? In the film, she saw the bloody face and screamed wildly--not at all matching the facts.
The family all called the maid Maggie, but the movie only mentioned her actual name of Bridget. She was a popular suspect with the public, largely because she was an Irish Catholic in a town full of people that didn't care for either. This wasn't mentioned either.
The film shows the maid washing windows when Andrew was killed. Wrong. While Maggie was washing windows at the time of the first murder, she was napping when Mr. Borden was killed. This was her option after Lizzie had suggested she go shopping for a while--right after Andrew had returned home. Her room was on the third level, far from the first floor sitting room site of the murder.
They also showed Maggie inside, hearing a thud (the falling body of Mrs. Borden) when in fact she reported hearing nothing, (as did Lizzie).
The many times when an investigator referred to Mrs. Borden as her "mother" and was interrupted by Lizzie, insisting she was only her "stepmother" were omitted from this film.
The dress that was such a focal point had been burned in the kitchen stove, not an outside pot as stated in the film. When the police arrived, Lizzie had already switched to a pink dress, unlike what the film depicted.
Extra SPOILER alert: The film depicts a totally concocted scene about what Lizzie actually told her sister about the murders that totally contradicts the historical record. It appears to take place shortly after the trial, and the next day, Emma is seen leaving their home and words on the screen tell us they never spoke again.
In real life, they shared the much larger home they bought after the murders for a dozen years. Years after moving out, Emma insisted she believed Lizzie innocent.
A blade was found in the basement, suspiciously buried in ashes, with the handle broken off. This blade was fitted precisely to the wounds in the skulls. It is believed the broken handle was burned in the stove. Amazingly, the film omits all of this.
I was also distressed at how the farcical elements of the trial were omitted from the film. The chief defense attorney was not the family lawyer as shown, but the former governor of the state who had appointed to the bench one of the three judges that sat on the case. That judge had delivered the charges to the jury that were pretty much a second summation for the defense, instead of what they should be. He even presented a theory about the missing note that the defense had not presented, as if he was trying extra hard to help the defense in the case. You'd have thought his name was Ito.
It was absurd for the film to show closing arguments as a back-and-forth between the two sides, which isn't at all true. When the jury returned to the courtroom, they enter in slow motion for some reason.
The director also found it necessary to repeatedly show scenes, usually short bits, of the hatchet swinging and blood flying, in flashback format, as if one look at all the blood wasn't enough.
I believe this film poorly made, with the worst soundtrack I ever heard, to be excessively bloody, and with over two dozen factual inaccuracies (I quit counting) to be a real waste of time.